mars2k's Reviews (234)

Omnia Sunt Communia: On the Commons and the Transformation to Postcapitalism

2.0

slow-paced

Omnia Sunt Communia is dense, dry, boring. It somehow feels both over-explanatory and poorly explained – De Angelis doesn’t do a very good job of explaining what he means by terms like “commons” and “commoning,” which are kind of the crux of the book. The diagrams make things more confusing rather than less. The author also presupposes the reader’s familiarity with various economists and philosophers, some of whom I’d never heard of let alone read their works. At first I was frantically looking up unfamiliar concepts and trying to make sense of them; as the book went on, however, I stopped caring and just accepted the fact I wouldn’t understand half of what was said.

I don’t know... It’s not a bad book per se but I feel like I didn’t get much from it. Hopefully someone else will enjoy it more than I did.

Content Warnings

Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity in This Crisis (And the Next)

Dean Spade

5.0

challenging hopeful informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

“Activism and mutual aid shouldn’t feel like a hobby—it should feel like living in alignment with our hopes for the world and with our passions. It should enliven us.”

Dean Spade’s Mutual Aid is an extraordinarily useful guide. It’s accessible, digestible, and more helpful than I can put into words. Despite its brevity, it offers a far better explanation of the concept than Kropotkin’s famous book of the same name, and it goes on to identify common pitfalls and give advice on how to avoid them, introduce the consensus process, and offer a few suggestions on how to mitigate conflict and burnout.

A vital resource for those new to mutual aid and activism, as well as those who have been involved for a while – we all have room to improve, and this book is full of good insights and prompts.

Content Warnings

Others of My Kind: Transatlantic Transgender Histories

Michael Thomas Taylor, Alex Bakker, Rainer Herrn

3.0

informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

Others of My Kind is a valuable resource, but something has to be said about the fact that most of its authors are cis. They may be well-read and well-intentioned but that doesn’t change the fact that this research comes from a disconnected perspective of outsiders looking in, with all information passing through a Cis Filter™ before it reaches the page. It’s a little hypocritical of them to declare the need to engage with trans people themselves not only the cis academics who study transness, seemingly without recognising that they are the cis academics who study transness.
I think the best way to exemplify the cisness of this book is this: it talks a lot about trans people taking the time to educate cis people, including their doctors, and they frame this as a wonderful kindness that we ("we") ought to be grateful for, rather than actually reckoning with the fact that trans people are expected to be well-spoken experts and ambassadors who will perform emotional labour at the drop of a hat, else we be denied basic rights like access to healthcare.

The sources are scant. That’s something that can’t be helped, but it does result in an unavoidably patchy history. Some of the figures in this book are known only from photographs; for others, no photographs are known to exist. The authors have made a commendable effort to collect as much information as possible on their subjects, but there will always be gaps. And I’d be lying if I said that’s not frustrating.

As for the writing, it’s... fine? It’s fine. It’s pretty repetitive, chapters are interrupted (often mid-sentence) by biographical inserts, and there’s some awkward phrasing here and there. All of these issues could have been lessened with tighter editing. I think the final chapter (“Historicizing Transgender Terminology”) probably should have been the first – to me it makes more sense to open with your statement of intent and your clarifications and disclaimers than it does to end on that note. The book also could have benefited from a more chronological structure. Jumping back and forth across the Atlantic is one thing, but jumping back and forth temporally as well makes the whole thing rather disorienting.

Despite its flaws, however, I am glad this book exists. I did learn a thing or two about early 20th century trans culture, and about pioneering trans individuals of the era. And for that, I think Others of My Kind was worthwhile.

Content Warnings

Salt Magic

Hope Larson, Rebecca Mock

4.0

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Salt Magic is a short but sweet tale about growing up and overcoming the desire to stay young forever. I adored the protagonist, Vonceil, from the very beginning – she has such a strong personality and it’s impossible not to root for her.

I bought this book for its stunning cover. The artwork inside isn’t quite as beautiful, but it’s expressive and full of character. It’s clear that a great deal of care has gone into the designs – from the characters to the architecture to the props and vehicles. It’s a well-crafted graphic novel all round :)

Content Warnings

The Goblin Emperor

Katherine Addison

4.0

emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I suppose I’ll start with a note on this book’s use of language: I found the grammar easy to understand, but the vocabulary not so much – unwieldy words like “Nazhmorhathvereise” and “Untheileneise’meire” disrupted my reading, and there are a lot of characters with confusingly similar names. The worldbuilding could have done with a little more depth, I think, though I do appreciate the steampunk flavour (clocks are a recurrent motif, and airships are prominent too). The story is largely confined to imperial palaces, so we don’t get to see the intricacies of everyday life in the Ethuveraz – rather, we learn about court etiquette and the inner workings of the government, which isn’t for everyone.

Maia, the protagonist, is by far the most fleshed-out character. He doesn’t have a lot of influence on the direction of the plot but, at the same time, his thoughts and feelings are the focus of the story. This book is something of a Maia character study.

I’ve seen other reviewers both fawningly and disparagingly call Maia a cinnamon roll who can do no wrong, but I don’t read him that way at all. In fact, Maia can be pretty awful at times. He crashes a funeral to make a point, with little to no regard for the mourners he’s intruding on. He bullies a messenger boy and then feels bad about it, not because he hurt the boy’s feelings but because doing so made him look bad. He has absolutely zero sympathy for a girl who, in his words, “let herself be bullied” and actually punishes her for it. Truly awful. But, in a way, these flaws make him a more compelling character. Maia is a young man struggling not only with unexpected responsibilities, but also with his past. For years he had been the victim of severe abuse, but now he has a great deal of power and doesn’t know what to do with it. The instincts he developed in order to survive and cope aren’t fit for this new situation he finds himself in, and so he ends up lashing out simply because he can, and fretting over others’ opinions of him because he fears their judgement. He straddles the line between being likeable and unlikeable, but I can’t say he isn’t sympathetic.

And while I’m discussing Maia’s moral failings, I would be remiss not to mention the fact that he’s an emperor with dozens of servants tending to his every need while, in the background, children die in workhouses. Which brings me to this book’s politics.

Here we see that common fantasy trope that all the world needs is a Good Monarch™ to set things straight, unlike those Bad Monarchs who do evil. The good are good and the bad are bad, and power in the hands of a good man can only be a good thing. Blah blah blah. I don’t buy it. And there are characters in the book who don’t buy it either.

One of the major antagonistic forces is a group of radicals – terrorists – who assassinated the previous emperor and now have their sights set on Maia. They are motivated by an ideal called “Universal Ascendance” wherein “no man holds power over any other,” which is apparently “a cloud-fancy” at odds with human nature (or elf/goblin nature, I guess). The less radical adherents of this ideology believe in the perpetual accumulation of power which thereby facilitates ascension to godhood (a real-world analogue could be capitalism, perhaps?) but of course it’s the leftists who are wicked and insane. I’m not saying they’re right to plant bombs but they are right to oppose the emperor.

Towards the end of the book the threat is declared over simply because it’s time to wrap things up. It’s a pretty clumsy conclusion that doesn’t make any sense in-universe. But I suppose it’s not important. Like I said, this is an exploration of Maia’s character more than anything else. The plot (if you can call it that) is secondary.

Considering I’ve spent so long picking apart The Goblin Emperor’s flaws and shortcomings, you may be surprised to hear that I did enjoy the book. It’s well-written, it’s compelling, and though there are some aspects which irked me, it’s a good book overall. Though the story isn’t great and the political assertions are dubious, I appreciate Maia so much I can’t bear to give this book a low rating. I probably won’t read the rest of the trilogy, but I don’t regret reading this.

Content Warnings

Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology

David Graeber

5.0

challenging funny informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

“This is a history which has largely yet to be written, but there are glimmerings.”

What a great little book! It’s nice and short, well formatted, and accessible. I was instantly hooked. And now, after finishing it, I feel inspired. Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology is astonishingly thoughtful and thought-provoking for such a quick read.

There are a few subjects on which Graeber could have said more. For example, towards the end of the book, he talks about identity politics. He chooses to focus on the ways in which people are categorised from the outside, with labels (eg: Black) being applied to demographics and signifying how members of that group should behave and be treated; he doesn’t discuss how identities can be used as unifying elements, as tools for political organisation (as in communities of vulnerability). While I do think this is something of an oversight, I don’t think of it as a failure. After all, this book is one of “fragments.” Of course there are going to be gaps or areas which invite more nuanced analysis than a hundred-page book can offer. Graeber seems to be more interested in asking questions than answering them fully – and not only is that okay, that’s kind of the point. He encourages us to think for ourselves rather than seeking instruction from authority.

I highly recommend this book. You’ll probably get more out of it if you’re at least somewhat familiar with anarchism already, but you don’t need to be well read in leftist literature.

Content Warnings

Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution

Peter Kropotkin, Peter Kropotkin

3.0

challenging hopeful informative slow-paced

The premise of Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution is simple: cooperation is just as significant as competition – if not more so – in ensuring that a species or community thrives. It is a response to social Darwinism, not only as a counter to those regressive “survival of the fittest” ideas, but also as a mirror, in the sense that Kropotkin uses scientific evidence and appeals to nature to grant his philosophy legitimacy, just as those proponents of eugenics and laissez-faire capitalism do. Kropotkin, conscious that his ideas may be dismissed as utopian, makes a point to present them in a very matter-of-fact, common-sense way. He provides countless examples of mutual aid in action in the animal kingdom and in human societies from ancient past to (then-)present. Though this list of anecdotes is kind of tedious and more cursory than I’d like, it is undeniably accessible – far more accessible than, say, Marx, whose writing is riddled with equations and tables of economic statistics.

Despite being an anarchist and therefore very mindful of hierarchy and injustice, Kropotkin does have his blind spots and shortcomings (as do we all). On many occasions Kropotkin would celebrate the solidarity and benevolence of a given group, then casually mention something horrific like women being taken as spoils of war. It’s unclear, in these instances, what his intention is. Does he just not recognise how fucked up this is? Is he trying to make a point about humans being capable of both good and evil? It’s jarring either way, and odd because one of the things I admired in The Conquest of Bread was his consideration of women.

He is somewhat critical of racism, though obviously not as critical as he could be. Throughout the book, Kropotkin uses several terms which today would be considered racial slurs, though he does often put “savage” in quotes, presumably to demonstrate his disapproval of the phrase. He is sceptical of certain claims made about indigenous peoples – he argues that cannibalism emerges in times of scarcity, that “eye for an eye” conceptions of justice are just as prevalent in Western Europe as they are in native tribes, and so on. He also notes that much of what we supposedly know about these tribes comes from the observations of genocidal colonisers. That said, he does agree that the Khoekhoen (not the word he used) are “filthy” and “occupy one of the lowest degrees on the human scale.” He also seems to take empire and colonisation for granted, and his sociological analysis is decidedly Eurocentric.

I don’t think Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution is as good as The Conquest of Bread, personally, even though a lot of people say it’s better. I can say this much: I appreciate what Kropotkin was going for.

Content Warnings

Evil Roots: Killer Tales of the Botanical Gothic

Daisy Butcher

3.5

dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Rappaccini’s Daughter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1844) – 4.0☆

Evil Roots is off to a strong start. Hawthorne isn’t secretive about his influences (namely the story of Adam and Eve, Dante’s Inferno, and some Indian legends about poisonous maidens), but it’s the way he subverts these tales rather than simply retelling them that makes this story engaging and unique.

The American’s Tale by Arthur Conan Doyle (1880) – 2.5☆

Doyle floats the idea of a flytrap large enough to eat humans but doesn’t really do anything with it. Pretty forgettable.

Carnivorine by Lucy H Hooper (1889) – 3.5☆

Okay so the monster in this story is pretty goofy but the concept behind it is so good. I love the combination of science and mythology, though the premise is a little too fantastical to be convincing science fiction.

The Giant Wistaria by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1891) – 3.0☆

A sad beginning and a sad end, with some cute banter in the middle. Not nearly as enthralling as The Yellow Wallpaper, unfortunately. The titular wisteria isn’t particularly relevant to the story, so it feels like a bit of a reach to claim this as an example of “botanical gothic.”

The Flowering of the Strange Orchid by H G Wells (1894) – 3.0☆

Could have done without the racism.

The Guardian of Mystery Island by Edmond Nolcini (1896) – 2.5☆

I don’t know, I just found this story really uninteresting.

The Ash Tree by M R James (1904) – 3.0☆

It’s fine? It’s very similar to The Giant Wistaria in a lot of ways, and, likewise, it’s not quite what I was hoping for.

A Vine on a House by Ambrose Bierce (1905) – 4.5☆

Concise!

Professor Jonkin’s Cannibal Plant by Howard R Garis (1905) – 3.5☆

Perfectly serviceable, if a little silly. I’m not surprised that this author went on to write for children; his somewhat whimsical tone is probably better suited to bedtime storybooks about bunny rabbits than it is to horror stories about insatiable pitcher plants.

The Voice in the Night by William Hope Hodgson (1906) – 3.5☆

This story deals with a fungus rather than a plant, but I suppose that’s still botanical – or at least botany-adjacent. The setup is promising but the tension is completely dissipated when the narrative shifts to an expositional monologue.

The Pavilion by Edith Nesbit (1915) – 3.5☆

A little underwhelming but certainly not bad.

The Green Death by H C McNeile (1920) – 3.0☆

A murder mystery with a twist. Quaint 1920s phrases, not-so-quaint glorification of colonialism.

The Woman of the Wood by Abraham Merritt (1926) – 4.0☆

Beautiful. Haunting. Mentions breasts a lot. The protagonist is a WWI veteran who was clearly very deeply affected by his experiences. His trauma relating to violence is explored, but so is his philosophy and outlook; he conceives of everything – including deforestation – in terms of war. Surprisingly nuanced characterisation for a short story.

The Moaning Lily by Emma Vane (1935) – 4.5☆

Evocative imagery, a straightforward plot, and a nice amount of body horror. Vane doesn’t overcomplicate things. A satisfying conclusion to the collection.

Content Warnings

Earthsea: The First Four Books

Ursula K. Le Guin

4.0

adventurous challenging dark hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) – 4.0☆

A typical coming-of-age fantasy adventure in many ways. It does carve out its own unique identity in its worldbuilding and its largely non-white cast, but otherwise it’s not particularly groundbreaking. And that’s okay – it doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel.

I liked the way real and perceived threats ended up blurring together, adding to the atmosphere of dread and despair. I also appreciate the way Ged’s sense of detachment came across through the narrative’s drifting from place to place and the transient cast of characters. Though, on the other hand, it did make it a bit difficult to get invested; by the time I met Jasper and Vetch, I’d already been conditioned not to get too attached. And it’s a little odd because, really, Ged isn’t all that detached? He does form meaningful relationships with people, it’s just that they occur offscreen (offpage?)

Similarly, we don’t really get to see the thought process behind Ged calling his shadow his own name.

The ending in general felt quite rushed, and I wish I had a better understanding of what Le Guin was going for thematically.

Still, I did enjoy A Wizard of Earthsea overall. I think it has a healthy balance of familiar tropes and innovation. Reading it was a nostalgic experience for me, as someone who used to devour fantasy novels as a kid :)

The Tombs of Atuan (1970) – 4.0☆

Now this one is interesting, both on its own and in conversation with A Wizard of Earthsea. Both are coming-of-age stories, but Wizard’s detachment is contrasted by Tombs’s claustrophobic atmosphere. The shadow metaphor is reworked and reused here, and the worldbuilding and mythos are expanded upon well.

The Tombs of Atuan can be interpreted a number of ways, especially when it comes to gender politics. Maybe it’s a feminist tale about a female protagonist asserting her own identity and gaining independence. Maybe it’s unfeminist because she ends up needing a heroic man to save her from the delusional women. And not only are these women delusional, they’re literally a man-hating cult – perhaps there’s an antifeminist message here? A transphobe might feel vindicated because Tenar’s real name is the one given to her by her parents and the cultists telling her otherwise are just conning themselves. A trans person may rejoice as Tenar reclaims her repressed identity and rejects the role that was forced onto her for completely arbitrary reasons. I’m not trying to identify any of these readings as Le Guin’s intent – I think that’s a fruitless endeavour. I just think it’s neat that a single story can be looked at through so many different lenses (though obviously I prefer some interpretations over others)

I must say I was a little disappointed by the introduction of racism into the world of Earthsea. I don’t mean that the story is racist or the author is racist, it’s just that there are racist characters in this story whereas in A Wizard of Earthsea people of varying skin tones seemed to coexist without this particular bigotry impacting their lives. It’s a shame because it seemed like Earthsea was this utopian racismless – maybe even raceless – society.

The Farthest Shore (1972) – 3.0☆

This is definitely a step down compared to the previous two instalments, but I wouldn’t say it’s outright bad. It’s fine? I think the themes of death and suicidality were handled fairly well,

and I like that Ged must once again confront his shadow, though in a less literal sense this time.

Unfortunately, The Farthest Shore isn’t particularly well written. It has many of the same weaknesses as A Wizard of Earthsea and, to a lesser extent, The Tombs of Atuan: exposition dumps, a lack of flow, an aimless plot wrapped up with a rushed ending, etc. The premise of this story is very cliché and Le Guin doesn’t really subvert it or add a fresh twist. It’s kind of generic. To me it reads like someone trying to write a fantasy story – it runs through the checklist of magic and dragons and royal lineages and so on, but it lacks depth and substance. The characters were flat, there was very little plot progression until the last few chapters, and the misanthropic belief that “men are savages” who need a king to establish “peace” goes unchallenged (for now – this line of thinking and other right wing biases are questioned in Tehanu).

The idea of Earthsea losing its magic is perhaps unintentionally meta...

Maybe I’m being a bit too harsh. In fairness, most of my disappointment stems from comparisons to A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan which, in my opinion, are better-written stories. The Farthest Shore isn’t bad. But it’s not particularly good either.

Tehanu (1990) – 4.0☆

This is no quadrilogy; The Farthest Shore was the end of the Earthsea trilogy, and Tehanu is an addendum. As I mentioned before, Le Guin uses Tehanu as an opportunity to deconstruct some of her earlier biases, particularly the patriarchal aspects of Earthsea. I applaud her for taking this approach rather than doubling down or sweeping the matter under the rug – she assessed her own worldbuilding with a critical eye and expanded on it using her newfound feminist and anarchist philosophies. I feel strangely proud of her :)

Tehanu takes on a much different tone and scope compared to the stories that preceded it. Rather than an epic fantasy quest, this story is more concerned with domestic life and the everyday reality of existing as a woman in this world – “ordinary fears,” as Tenar puts it. It explores themes of power and privilege and ignorance as a tool of oppression. It’s a little on the nose at times but for the most part it’s handled with tact and grace. There are some absolutely iconic quotes, like “she had been told that men must not look into a dragon’s eyes, but that was nothing to her.”

I was actually considering rating Tehanu four and a half stars, but the ending brought it down to a round four. In typical Le Guin style, the story plods along, virtually plotless, then everything happens so much in the last couple of chapters. It just implodes. At least in The Farthest Shore Ged and Lebannen were ostensibly searching for the cause of magic’s disappearance; what happens here is shocking and absurd, and not in a good way.

Through the original trilogy, Ged has something of a genderbent maiden/mother/crone arc, then in Tehanu he’s free to be someone new. There’s also a neat transition from the abstract threats in A Wizard of Earthsea to the material threats in Tehanu.

I’ve mentioned a couple of times a recurrent flaw in Le Guin’s writing: the meandering flow ended abruptly by a waterfall. That said, her worldbuilding is fantastic and won me over. I think The Tombs of Atuan is probably my favourite of the set though I value them all (even The Farthest Shore)

I’m so glad I finally read these stories, and reading them back-to-back in one volume meant I could compare them and recognise similarities and differences between them that I otherwise might not have picked up on. I would definitely recommend this book to any fans of fantasy or people looking to get into fantasy.

I’ll probably read the other Earthsea stories at some point but I’m also curious about Le Guin’s sci-fi work, so maybe I’ll read some of those first.

Content Warnings

Die, Vol. 4: Bleed

Kieron Gillen

4.5

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Great series

Content Warnings

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